In many homes presently under construction, the buyer desires that a fireplace be constructed in one wall or an opening formed in a wall wherein a wood or other type burner may be installed. This being the case, usually one wall is constructed of brickwork and when a builder is called upon to form an opening in a wall, a mason is required to erect the one wall. If the opening in the wall is to be arch-shaped, several problems are presented, one being that it is quite time consuming and costly to engage a mason to form the archway since following the placement of the bricks and after the mortar has hardened, the mason must now come along with a masonry saw to cut the bricks individually to form the curvature of the arch.
When the opening in the wall is to be of square configuration, the mason must carefully align the bricks at the opening in order not to destroy the appearance of the fireplace opening. Again, this perfect alignment of the bricks at the opening in the wall can be quite time consuming and of course, this adds to the overall costs in the building of a home.
With the above in mind, it is one object of the invention to provide a pre-cast form either of square or arch-shaped in configuration and to use the same to cover the sides of the opening formed in the wall whereby the cutting off of the bricks so as to form an arch shape is eliminated. Likewise, the necessity of perfectly aligning the bricks for a square opening in the wall is obviated.
Another object of the invention is to pre-cast a form of metal which will either be square or arch-shaped in configuration and which will have on one face thereof a brick or stone design.
Another object of the invention is to pre-cast a brick or stone simulation for either a square or arch-shaped structure which is to be used to cover the sides of a like formed opening in either a brick or stone wall.
Another object of the invention is to laminate a formica or like non-combustible material to the one face of a pre-cast form, the non-combustible sheet having formed thereon the appearance of a brick or stone structure and to incorporate the pre-cast form into a brick or stone wall structure.
These and other objects and aspects of the invention will be more clearly understood from the following description of the embodiments of the invention shown by way of example only in the accompanying drawings.